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Slide885
Hoi there, I haven't had a chance to really play SR in a few years. I'm putting together a run and was looking for a little help for the first run I'm setting up for a group. For the most part the group is fairly new to SR, I'm most familiar with SR4 but reading through the SR5 rules currently. Anyways break down of the run.

The Job: Vinny T, the General manager of Emerald City Waste management has a small task that he needs some help with. There is this detective working for Knight Errant, use to be a hot shot on their HTR team. Guy thinks he's a a god damn hero cop, above taking a few bribes to look the other way. Bad for business, ya know? In any case word has come down that their is about to be a round of promotions for KE, in the Emerald City. Looks like Detective Neisse is up for a big one. Would be chief of security for most of the complex. So this is where the job comes in. Vinny obviously can't have this happening, so he wants to the runners to plant some thing incriminating in the Detective's apartment and car. Namely a hand gun in the apartment, and a dead hooker in the car. The gun is in a plastic bag and the former lady of the night freshly wrapped in a rug, dead from an apparent drug overdose.

So part of the design behind this run is to pressure the runners into relatively quick action. I tend to find that my groups love to over plan things for days and days. So anyways for the next three or four days Detective Neise will be working his cases. His official schedule is 6-6, but often works late. Unusually, he doesn't live in Ares Corporate housing, instead choosing to live in an independently owned high rise in the city. A bit expensive for sure but a curious look into the Detective's spending habits show that he is a major tight wad with money. Even drives an old model Nissan Jackrabbit. Anyways Security at the highrise isn't anything insane. If security notices people loitering they will send some one to check it out. Parking spots are assigned for residents. His apartment is maglocked on the front door and on the balcony. And of course maintenance and security have master keys to all the apartments.

So the assumption is that the runners would lay in wait at the apartments to plant the evidence, probably breaking into the apartment to plant the gun first. The night they choose to do the job the detective comes in late, almost midnight. They pop his trunk to plant the body and see another dead hooker looking them right in the face. Unfortunately the small trunk of the nissan jackrabbit can't fit both in there. Choices Choices. Oh, and the detective is coming back from his apartment with a tool kit.

If the runners had tailed him from his job they would of witnessed the whole thing take place at a cheap hotel that night. If the runners didn't switch out the bodies Vinny T won't pay for the job.

So what's really going on? The gun as you can imagine was used in a murder to kill another KE officer a few months before. The dead body they need to plant is the Mayor of Seatles niece. Even if the charges didn't stick it would of ended Neisse's career. The other hooker was what she looks to be. Either an unfortunate accident, or pre-meditated murder by an over worked under paid cop who had been left a bit too empty inside by his work.

Thoughts? How stiff should the security be at the apartments? How should I handle it if they get made?
Iduno
Sounds like a fun run, and a good opportunity for unexpected (maybe some randomly rolled) events. Hopefully something helps:

The apartments themselves shouldn't provide great security, at least not for the sake of security. Most of the problems the runners might encounter should come from greed, the mark's paranoia, or nosy/protective neighbors (maybe neighborhood watch or a local gang protecting their turf).

If someone parks across lines, or in a spot they aren't assigned to? They get towed fairly quickly, and the car can be retrieved for an unreasonable fee.

As a KE officer, he's probably picked up on the ways people break into apartments, and found some counters. An easily hackable computer/commlink set up to browse random sites from the user's history makes it look like he's home. Maybe the trid turns on or changes channels automatically every so often. Is there a drone that could make noises like someone walking around?

With a police officer around, any gang protecting the place is less likely to be drug-runners or other criminal group. More likely they're the "we don't need to call the police"-style group of neighbors who are in it for the violence chance to keep their neighborhood safe.

Official security might be the same people (or at least equally as reliable) as maintenance. No way to know when they're arriving to fix something finally, look into a complaint now that 10 people have made the same complaint, or are putting up signs saying they sprayed for bugs/put out poison for devil rats. Maybe even a delivery person/drone bringing by a package for someone who moved out 2 months ago.

You may also have police (from whichever company) officers showing up to check into the major complaints ignored by the apartment management, or to serve warrants. Maybe truant officers if that's still a thing and it's a nice enough neighborhood that they care (or the school only gets money from students who attend a certain percentage of classes).


As an addendum, a KE officer should take the bribe. As long as they report it and don't help whoever paid them, it's theirs to keep. That would also explain Vinnie's anger a bit more.
Beta
Looks like a pretty good outline to me (I’m thinking I’ll steal that basic outline for my own use at some point – I like the twist).

For a first run I’d put the emphasis more on making it feel tense and dangerous and like failure is just around the corner, rather than actually making it all that hard or difficult. In other words, throw in some speedbumps but make them easy enough to deal with so long as the runners keep their cool and don’t start shooting everything in sight.

For example when they are heading up to the apartment, someone opens their door/window/whatever and realizes that the runners don’t belong there -- but the person involved is drunk or slotting a btl or something, so that while they may be initially suspicious and belligerent, it will be easy enough deal with them in one way or another. Or while they are transporting the body there is a high-profile runner hit on a nearby building, and KE is stopping cars leaving the area to try and trap the culprits; as long as their fake ID and licenses are in reasonable order and they don’t freak out they should get through it OK, since they won’t match the descriptions and they don’t look bloody, dirty, etc. (hopefully).
Slide885
Thanks, feel free to steal away. The dead hookers are an idea straight from Archer Season 1.

I like the idea that he has a cleaning drone walking around his house changing trid channels and saying "Who is that? Get out of my apartment!" I'll take a look at some fleshing out a local protection gang. I like the idea of them getting a bit nosy when they see some one messing with cars on their turf or possibly some drunks. I was also considering having Matilda, the elderly dwarf, be his across the hall neighbor. She's always looking to pry, especially if the runners pretend to be maintenance. She's got a laundry list of complaints to take up with them.
Slide885
So thoughts on the gang. I'm going to barrow some npcs from an GM I use to play with.

Franky and Gabo are a couple of low level drug pushers who are caught up in some pretty heavy shit. But they know these guys don't belong here, they wait till the runners start messing with the detective's car to approach them.

"Hey there Chummer, what are you up to? We don't want no trouble, play it cool, but if you want to work on our turf you need to pay us some respect. Look here, I got deep weed, BTLs, Hot Sim Rigs ready to go. Pick up some merch and we will look the other way. " Franky keeps his hands up high and wide showing his bare chest under his jacket and the ruger super warhawk stuffed down the front of his pants.

If they happen to see the trunk pop open with the body in it they will imideatly say "you know what? we want no part of this, you guys have fun," and about face and walk away.
ShadowDragon8685
Vinnie had better be paying them a fucking truckload of nuyen to handle the Mayor's goddamn dead niece.
Gingivitis
One thing I try to remember when placing NPCs is to be prepared to have them murdered. That doesn't always mean giving them a stat block, but you should have consequences in mind before you place them OR equip them. Little old lady with a commlink upgrade? Be ready to have a new player shoot her in the face for it. Gangers acting threateningly? Be prepared to place revenge-seeking gangers in the story next run when players mistake an obstacle for a threat.

Don't let it derail your current story but be aware that players (especially new players) don't think like GMs.
Slide885
QUOTE (ShadowDragon8685 @ Aug 9 2016, 03:08 PM) *
Vinnie had better be paying them a fucking truckload of nuyen to handle the Mayor's goddamn dead niece.


What they don't know they can't charge for. But a quick background check on the body....
Slide885
QUOTE (Gingivitis @ Aug 9 2016, 03:18 PM) *
One thing I try to remember when placing NPCs is to be prepared to have them murdered. That doesn't always mean giving them a stat block, but you should have consequences in mind before you place them OR equip them. Little old lady with a commlink upgrade? Be ready to have a new player shoot her in the face for it. Gangers acting threateningly? Be prepared to place revenge-seeking gangers in the story next run when players mistake an obstacle for a threat.

Don't let it derail your current story but be aware that players (especially new players) don't think like GMs.


Well that's the beauty of random NPCs. I have very little actually invested in them, and generally I try to teach my players that a trail of random bodies is generally a bad plan. Besides how else do I get future hooks? biggrin.gif
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